Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Well there she is... the STUDY booth at Broadway Antique Market is officially live as of last Thursday and thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who came out to help me celebrate this milestone. Not to get all sappy on you, but I've got a lot of personal reasons (don't we all) for being excited about this particular space, and it really meant a lot to see so many friends and longtime fans of STUDY show up; we even got a visit from the cutest lesbian couple ever who've been followers and customers of STUDY's since way back when we exhibited at the DANK Haus during the first Vintage Bazaar!

So let it be known... if STUDY can win over the elusive design-minded lesbian crowd, we can do anything. Today Portia and Ellen, tomorrow the WORLD!

And now for a few random thoughts/truth time:

1. Lesson Learned: I need to take more pictures of actual attendees/friends/customers next time I do this. This is recap of a party, not a vintage housewares perp walk.

2. I'm still negotiating my need to have a carefully edited, shopable booth with the fact that I'm here to sell, sell, SELL. As in more. Stuff. Everywhere. It's a balance for sure, and I've already pushed myself pretty far IMHO. We'll see what the receipts say, but if all else fails I'm shoving all the smalls in the showcase and letting the big pieces stand out. There... I said it.

3. Domestica was kind enough to feature STUDY in its coverage of the BAM party and sale. I had absolutely no idea this was in the works so it was a total pleasure to open up my email and see an instagramed photo of the booth being broadcast to the masses. If I didn't say it before, thank you Bradley Lincoln! Thank you Chicago Home + Garden!

4. Can we just talk about when old school companies get social media right? I tweeted a few weeks ago about how I was painting the booth Benjamin Moore's Hale Navy because it's the perfect color and I love it... and then B. Moore's twitter account actually responded and even asked for details of the party so they could re-tweet it. They've got over 20,000 followers which, if you're Ashton Kutcher (and why would you want to be) isn't a big deal, but the 20,000 followers they do have are some KEY frigging people in the design community. Needless to say, I'm grateful that B. Moore makes great paint, and that I know how to use a computer.

5. One of my favorite moments of the night was when Randolph Street Market founder Sally Schwartz stopped by the booth and immediately set her sights on a set of eight gilt and green highballs (you can see part of them in the photo below). She told me her parents had the exact same glasses which she inherited and which she now only had two of. Sure it's always nice to make a customer happy with some deep emotional connection from the past, but when it's, uh, someone who has access to almost the entire inventory of the Randolph Street Market... well then it's really special.

6. Lest I forget, another Chicago vintage market doyenne graced us with her appearance: Katherine Raz, co-founder of the Vintage Bazaar and BackGarage shop-owner extraordinaire, stopped by to take in the sights and drool over STUDY's Zawitz Tangle sculptures. I told her that since she's been such a pivotal part of STUDY's growth, I'd officially name an entire section of the STUDY booth, "The Katherine Raz Tribute Corner & Commemorative Section". Chrome pillars, Zawitz sculptures and all.

And in an effort to be completely redundant, thanks again to everyone who visited, will visit, or thinks about visiting.